Chopsticks

A student found dead with chopsticks through his eyes. A ghost bride determined to get her revenge. A curse that refuses to die.

In a quiet Japanese town, Amemiya grows fascinated with a new classmate. Every lunchtime Neko stabs his chopsticks upright in his bowl of rice, like a funeral offering. He confides that he is undertaking the forbidden Lord Chopsticks ritual, where after eighty-four days his greatest wish should be granted. Amemiya starts the ritual too, without realising that Lord Chopsticks demands a terrifying price.

In Taiwan, Big Six’s experience of a hex residing in a pair of coral chopsticks at first seems unrelated, as does the livestreamed death of Laila’s boyfriend in Hong Kong, which causes an online frenzy around the urban legend of the vengeful Ghost Bride. But a darker force is at work than just coincidence, one that connects to the disappearance of a whole class of schoolchildren near Jiuji Mountain forty years ago. As the mysteries start to unravel, a picture emerges of a curse that stretches across countries and decades.

In Chopsticks, five of East Asia’s most acclaimed writers weave together a haunting novel of desire, folklore and malice — where every wish carries a deadly cost.